Why Core Web Vitals Are Important for Small Businesses

Keeping up with Google updates could be a full-time job in its own right – and that’s just for the ones the search giant chooses to make publicly available. However, if you only pay attention to a single algorithm tweak this month, core web vitals deserve your undivided attention.

Core web vitals are important for small businesses at a purely search-driven level because they represent a significant shift in ranking factors.

Announced in May 2020 and outlined in greater detail in the following November, the new system goes beyond traditional ranking factors like keywords and domain authority, shifting the focus to user experience. Google has long stated its intent to provide the best possible search experience based on more than just the results themselves.

Forbes went as far as to say that customer experience is the new SEO and the deployment of core web vitals certainly leans into this theory.

The rollout of core web vitals as a ranking factor was completed in August 2021, making it a significant concern for any small business with a website – 72% of them, to be precise.

Three Components of Core Web Vitals

Unsurprisingly, the new ranking factors won’t be the only means of deciding where a page appears in search results. However, they’re destined to play a significant role. The vitals themselves break down into three components:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The LCP is based on how long it takes the main body of a page to load. Google wants to provide results that load quickly, providing the information searchers look for as speedily as possible. Pages that load in under 2.5 seconds are considered good. Anything over 4 seconds is poor, and anything in between needs work.

First Input Delay (FID)

Modern web pages are often more than just static resources. Even the age-old action of clicking a link counts as an interaction, and a page must respond quickly to inputs. A good FID score comes in at under a tenth of a second. Anything over a third is considered poor. As before, a score that sits somewhere between these levels means that the site owner has some work to do.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

A site’s CLS score indicates that content presented on a page stays in one place. Unfortunately, it’s often overlooked in design, and many things that can negatively impact this score are accidental or caused externally.

Nevertheless, those accidents need to be fixed so that a page scores and therefore ranks well. When someone goes to click a button on a page, it should be where they expect it, not shifted because an ad loaded, for example. A score of 0.1 or less, reflecting how much content moves, is considered good.

Why are Core Web Vitals Important for Small Businesses?

The obvious impact of poor performance under core web vitals metrics is reduced search performance. You may have the best content in the world, but if visitors have a hard time viewing or interacting with it, Google will react accordingly.

The importance of search traffic varies from business to business, but as a low-cost, organic means of getting interested people onto your site, it’s extremely valuable. If you rely heavily on this kind of traffic today or feel it could become more valuable in the future, core web vitals must be a priority.

If you’re set up on Google Search Console, you can take a look at how you’re getting on right away under the aptly named Core Web Vitals tab.

Beyond the Rankings

As a small business owner, you don’t need Google to tell you about the importance of the user experience on your site.

Loading times, covered by the LCP score, are an excellent example. As web pages become more complex and data-driven, they take longer to load. However, there needs to be something in place to ensure that this doesn’t get out of hand. After all, according to Google research, 53% of mobile users will leave a website if their page doesn’t load in three seconds.

That has little to do with search performance – it’s downright bad for business!

The launch’s impact cannot be ignored, but it might be the nudge some small businesses require to ensure their site is designed with the customer in mind.

Bringing Your Website Up to Scratch for Core Web Vitals

Some small businesses will have focused on the user experience before it became a necessity. Others might have lucked into fantastic scores. Still others, however, may need to make changes to remain ahead of the competition or boost their brand profile.

Focusing solely on core web vitals as a metric, they’re all about speed. That means that entrepreneurs could focus on:

• Streamlining their site with WordPress plugins

• Using a content delivery network (CDN) to improve loading times

• Optimizing the databases that run in the background of their site

• Focus on advice through Google itself via PageSpeed Insights

Of course, many of these tasks are somewhat technical and relatively few small business owners will have the time and expertise to monitor and refine.

That’s where we come in.

Impeccable Vital Signs with Vervology.Care

Loading times and the overall user experience rely on more than what meets the eye. For example, setting a fixed width and height for images will help, but it’s only one part of a much broader requirement.

Code and images, your web server, external content providers, and more contribute to achieving the highly desirable green score on core web vitals. Our Vervology.Care Performance package can take care of all of this on your behalf and ensure that once your site goes green, it stays that way.

We’ll not only optimize your site speed but also carry out professional routine maintenance to give your visitors an experience you’re proud of. This spans website security, site tweaks for peak performance across phones and tablets, regular backups, and everything else to keep your site at the pinnacle of usability. That’s all while leaving you free to focus on what you’re best at, safe in the knowledge that your site delights everyone that arrives.

Of course, you may prefer to bring your site up to par before planning your next course of action. From design and development to hosting and management, we’d be most happy to discuss your options and requirements.